In a previous post of mine, I wrote about Consistency and Rituals.  Today, I’m going to write about my process that leads up to building consistency and rituals - cultivating habits - desired ones at that.

For those who know me, it’s been a bit of a hobby of mine to soak up anything personal development or productivity related.  From blogs like Leo Babauta’s “Zen Habits” to personal development systems from Tony Robbins.

Over the last little while, I’ve put a lot of effort into building a “fitness habit”.  Just recently, I finished a Crossfit Bootcamp over at Crossfit Toronto.  A fantastic program, which is constantly varied, forces you to wake up at an ungodly hour (they only had a 6am and a 7am class.. I opted for the later :), that WILL. KICK. YOUR. ASS.  The result is that I feel stronger and more energetic by getting up first thing in the morning and getting a killer workout out of way to set the tone for the rest of my day.

Anyway, a few of the challenges for me before in instilling this habit was accountability and just being plain bored from working out alone.  Over the last 3 years, I had started and fizzled out on programs like P90X and Insanity. The thing I sorely missed was that I didn’t have others I was in constant contact with or guidance in order to perform certain movements or exercises properly.  I was a loose cannon.  I had a lot of freedom to work out whenever I wanted but it turned out I made too many excuses by not putting in effort to block out time at a certain part of my day that was “sacred” to my fitness.

In retrospect, through the bootcamp, I had a few things going for me in building up the habit.  For one, I paid $250 for the bootcamp - not a paltry sum so I didn’t want to waste my money, which definitely helped with me following through.  The workouts were set for us and our instructor Ryan really pushed us and was ever so helpful in correcting our form - so I didn’t have to put conscious effort in wondering if I was doing things properly - I got almost instantaneous feedback. Also, I didn’t have much choice in what time I was to attend their bootcamp.  6am or 7 am.  That was it.  Although it was tough the first two days, I quickly fell in line with my other classmates and just showed up consistently.  A little over a month later, it feels really weird to not head to the gym for that short hour to start my day or just simply blow off some steam.

A simple concept that Leo (of Zen Habits) wrote about in many of his materials are 30 day challenges.  His logic was that anyone can complete a 30 day challenge right?  Whether for self-experimentation or simply to pour in conscious and deliberate effort into building a habit and blogging about it for accountability purposes in order to “program” some positive change for the long term.

I think it’s kind of bullshit having to self-experiment in complete isolation with no real-time feedback in understanding a new endeavour properly.  I didn’t blog, I just used Facebook’s check-in service to detail my effort to my friends.  Those that cared gave me all the “virtual” feedback and encouragement I needed to continue.

Looking back, maybe I was a slow learner, but it simply didn’t work for myself doing 30 day challenges without some community I could lean on whenever I had some difficulties.  I’ve a slew of journals that detailed my experiences, but they just trailed off.  As with anything in life, simply being *physically surrounded* by people of similar mindset and striving towards a common goal is probably the single most crucial aspect of reaching goal or cultivating lifelong habits.

Come to think of it, this resonates in all things I’ve done where I’ve experienced any modicum of lasting success.  Having some sort of in person community (not just virtual) that will push, encourage, keep you accountable and kick your ass (in a good way) to prevent you from failing or faltering.